Whetting the appetite for words

Updated on: Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Are you an ‘intexicated' driver? And that was no typo error for we are not referring to the inebriated condition caused by certain heavy spirits. Perhaps you may have taken the intexticated route to escape ‘airplane talkers'!

None of the above may seem to make sense just like students of Cauvery Matriculation School felt at the beginning of the NIE session on ‘Expand your vocabulary'. That is until resource person Bhooma Venkatesan threw light on the intriguing terms. An intexticated driver may be used to describe someone who drives while they text and airplane talkers are those who talk louder than a conversation demands, as if to drown the sound of a plane's engines!

Instead of throwing new words at students, the resource person put up sentences that whetted their curiosity. They soon found themselves learning phrases like ‘joined at the hip', ‘at the deep end' and ‘hand me up'. As it is natural that we don't remember all that we read or hear, putting things into action is the best way to etch something in the mind, said Ms.Bhooma. She exhorted students to use words in everyday conversation in class and home. Reading the weekly column ‘Know Your English' would benefit students as they are introduced to new phrases regularly, she added.

Learning new words should be fun oriented exercise, not a mundane task. “Challenge your friends and family to come up with new words. That way, building your vocabulary becomes exciting.”

Whetting the appetite for words

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